Where does the time go? It’s hard to believe that it’s already the end of July and that seven months of this year have already passed.

I hope you have a great weekend and I appreciate you checking out my “Random Friday Thoughts”. After you read mine, feel free to share yours.

#45, YOU DON’T SURPRISE ME AT ALL

Last summer, when #45 posted this on Twitter, I made sure to save it.

On January 27, 2017, I wrote, “At the time of this tweet, I laughed to myself as a man, an American, and one of those people he thanked! I think now just as I thought then, it’s just another joke and a bad one played on me and my fellow Americans.”

This past Wednesday, #45 tweeted that transgender people will not serve in the military in an capacity.

Here’s my reply.

This ban is a perfect example of “smoke and mirrors” to hide his job and policy failures.

Friends, just remember: “Stay Woke” and “Resistance”!

KILLING GAYS IN CHECHNYA

Outside of conservative America, there’s an all out war against the LGBT community in Chechnya (a republic of Russia). When I say war, I mean savage murdering.

The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazetta reports that as many as 26 men have been killed, so far, in 2017, in Chechnya.

However, Chechnya’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov, claims there are no gay people there. In an interview with “Real Sports”, he said “To purify our blood, if there are any here, take them to Canada”.

Earlier this spring, he publicly stated that he wanted all LGBT people in his country eliminated by May 26, the start of Muslim holiday, Ramadan.

While sad and devastating, one has to think how this might be handled if the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was different — if we had Hillary Clinton as president and a different Secretary of State.

BUT, WE HAVE OUR OWN HATRED

While Chechnya and Russia’s hatred of LGBT people needs to be addressed on the international stage, we need to do something at home, too.

Already in 2017, there have been, at least, 11 trans people, many of them people of color, murdered in the United States.

But, this is nothing new, it’s just getting worse.

Over the years, Brandy Martell (above) is just one of many high-profile transgender women, again, mostly people of color, that have been brutally murdered.

37-year-old Martell was shot in the genitals in Oakland, California, and Diamond Williams’ body was hacked into pieces and scattered about in an overgrown lot in Philadelphia.

And, just last week, a former Navy sailor, 21-year-old Dwanya Hickerson, of Mississippi, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for murdering a registered nurse, Dee Wigham, in 2016.

Hickerson stabbed Wigham 119 times after learning that she was transgender.

“LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE”

Maybe everyone needs to take four minutes and open their ears and mind and listen to LeAnn Rimes!

She’s one of my favorite singers and a sweetheart (I met her in Salisbury, Maryland, in 2005).

This week she tops the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart with her latest, “Love is Love is Love”.

Earlier this year, “Long Live Love” also topped the chart marking her third #1 on the Dance Club Songs chart.

If you haven’t bought her latest album, “Remnants”, do so now. It’s phenomenal!

“OZARK”

“Ozark” is the latest Neflix series and it debuted last week.

Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is a financial adviser from Chicago who’s laundering money for a Mexican drug lord. When a scam deal goes bad, he relocates to the Ozarks of Missouri to continue his illegal work.

Laura Linney, one of my favorite actresses, plays his wife. You’ve heard me talk about her many times as Mary Ann Singleton in “Tales of the City”. Plus, she’s a three-time Oscar nominee and she’s won four Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes!

This is an excellent series and both lead actors play their broken characters very well.

The Emmys will come calling for Bateman, Linney, and the series next summer and I hope it’s renewed for season two.

GRADE: A

“TO THE BONE”

Earlier this week, I talked about the Netflix movie “To The Bone”.

It’s the story of a 20-year-old woman’s struggle with anorexia that was not only threatening to kill her, but it was also tearing her family apart.

While the movie was realistic and I commend it for showing that men suffer from eating disorders, too, I was a little offset by the amount of humor surrounding the dire subject.

Humor is needed in the darkest of times, but there has to be a line and I think this movie crossed that line, at times.

Overall, a great movie to highlight a devastating illness.

GRADE: B

RECOVERY IS A LIFELONG STRUGGLE

I know first hand about eating disorders. While “To The Bone” focused mostly on anorexia nervosa, my illness is the opposite, bumilia (binging and purging).

In 1995, I weighed 116 pounds (down from a weight of 169 in 1986). I was on the wagon for 21 years, but I relapsed this past winter.

I’m eating healthy again and exercising. I’m at almost three months and counting toward my next 21-year run!

If you or someone you know is fighting anorexia and/or bulimia, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association at 1-800-931-2237 or check out their website, http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/

MELISSA McCARTHY KNOWS SHE’S NOT THIN

The hilarious comedian earned an Oscar nomination for “Bridesmaids” and scored one of my favorite movies of 2015 with “Spy”.

She’s talked candidly with “Rolling Stone” about her weight and said she often wished she was taller, prettier, and thinner.

One night she was looking at the IMDB message board and saw an anonymous message from Ohio at 3:43 a.m. calling her a “fat pig” and hoping “she drops dead of a heart attack in front of her children.”

McCarthy told the magazine, “all the air left my lungs. Like, wait a minute. My kids? Like who –? What kind of ass? I kind of wanted to go to Ohio and just be like, ‘Hey, I have two girls, I do by best, and you hope I die in front of them? Like, what the f*ck? I mean, you can hate my movies, find me boring or over-the-top, whatever it is. But when you move into that realm of the world…”

What is wrong with people?

MARTHA WASH & BLACKBOX

Just one more thought on this weighty subject matter.

I’m sure many of you remember or have heard the classic,”It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls.

The group, made up of Martha Wash and Izora Armstead, also worked as back-up singers for Sylvester. They were then known as Two Tons O’ Fun.

Since then, Wash has worked with many acts because she’s an incredible vocalist. Back around 1990, she sang on albums by C+C Music Factory and Black Box.

“Everybody Everybody” and “Strike It Up” became Top Ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and both topped the Dance Club Songs chart.

However, if you watch the “Strike It Up” video, you don’t see Wash. You see a very petite Katrin Quinol lip-synching the lyrics!

Wash also sang the vocals on C+C Music Factory’s #1 hit, “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)”. Yet, another petite woman, Zelma Davis, appears in the video moving her mouth to Wash’s voice.

It’s a perfect example of pandering to the mentality that it’s easier to sell a product with a pretty, young, and thin woman as opposed to a pretty, older, and larger lady.

I wish we lived in a society that accepted people for who or what they are, but we don’t. 😦

As for Martha Wash, in 1993, her self-titled album produced three Top Ten Dance Club Songs hits with two hitting #1 (“Carry On” and “Give It To Me”). I also got to see her perform at the Vortex in Chicago around that time!

Here’s that full-figured dynamo with some very hot, hot dancers!

In 1994, Wash and C+C Music Factory’s Clivilles and Cole reached two out-of-court settlements giving Martha credit for singing on their hits.

TROPICKLES

You may have heard Walmart is carrying Tropical-flavored pickle spears!

Some of you are already snarling your nose up and some are thinking that it sounds interesting.

Kyle, our morning photographer, brought some in and I tried one.

If you like “bread and butter” pickles and you like fruit punch, you’ll love them. It’s a very pleasant combination and I’d definitely buy them for a picnic.

PICK HIT & PANAMA CITY BEACH

Most of you may not know Jason Dottley.

He starred in the LogoTV series, “Sordid Lives: Television Series”. (If you’ve never seen the original “Sordid Lives” with Olivia Newton-John, Leslie Jordan, Beth Grant, Delta Burke, and others, you’ve got to find it. Hilarious!)

Jason is also a singer that’s scored three hits on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart over the years.

His latest, “Summertime” is convenient for the season.

The video was filmed in Panama City Beach, Florida. While there, over the Fourth of July, Jason says a young woman called him a “f**got”.

I know Jason is man enough to handle her ignorance.

But, I just want you all to know we have some great people here — like those that risked their own lives recently to make a human chain to save a family caught in dangerous rip currents. But, we also have other people like that young woman! It takes all kinds!

THAT’S IT

With all the craziness in the world, make it the best in your little part of it!